Rally for equal rights at City Hall on Oct. 14

By Marena Groll

Published: Friday, October 11, 2013 at 09:04 PM.

To the editor:

The General Assembly targeted the voting rights of women this year. That lit the fuse in the renewed grassroots push spreading rapidly across our state to pass an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Women and men in our local area will rally to protect women’s rights this Monday, Oct. 14, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in front of Jacksonville City Hall offices at 815 New Bridge St.

The suffrage fight for a woman’s right to vote was won in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. In a historical nod to that victory, women and men at the rally will be wearing all white as worn in the many vigils and parades during the struggle. Several women will be fully costumed in white vintage dress with full length skirts, ruffled tops, hats and gloves.

The rally marks the refusal of women to cede ground on their voting rights and is a call for action to push for the ERA — the bedrock, constitutional guarantee that no legislature can ever make voting laws or any laws that discriminate by sex.

We need the ERA as clearly evidenced by the actions against women sweeping our nation but epitomized in the actions of our own General Assembly. It drew the harsh gaze of national media when it passed H.B. 589, the Voter Identification and Verification Act (VIVA). It requires strict forms of photo ID, hurting women substantially and disproportionately as revealed by a Democracy NC data analysis.

The State Board of Elections matched its list of registered voters with the DMV list of people holding a license or state identity card. The Board found that about 506,600 active, registered voters could not reliably be matched with the DMV list. Women are 54 percent of all active, registered voters, but 66 percent of those voters without a North Carolina photo ID.

Tens of thousands of women will be impacted. No doubt some women are caught up in the process of changing names on IDs to accommodate our cultural practices only to have it used against them to limit their voting.

The General Assembly targeted the voting rights of women this year. That lit the fuse in the renewed grassroots push spreading rapidly across our state to pass an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Women and men in our local area will rally to protect women’s rights this Monday, Oct. 14, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in front of Jacksonville City Hall offices at 815 New Bridge St.

The suffrage fight for a woman’s right to vote was won in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. In a historical nod to that victory, women and men at the rally will be wearing all white as worn in the many vigils and parades during the struggle. Several women will be fully costumed in white vintage dress with full length skirts, ruffled tops, hats and gloves.

The rally marks the refusal of women to cede ground on their voting rights and is a call for action to push for the ERA — the bedrock, constitutional guarantee that no legislature can ever make voting laws or any laws that discriminate by sex.

We need the ERA as clearly evidenced by the actions against women sweeping our nation but epitomized in the actions of our own General Assembly. It drew the harsh gaze of national media when it passed H.B. 589, the Voter Identification and Verification Act (VIVA). It requires strict forms of photo ID, hurting women substantially and disproportionately as revealed by a Democracy NC data analysis.

The State Board of Elections matched its list of registered voters with the DMV list of people holding a license or state identity card. The Board found that about 506,600 active, registered voters could not reliably be matched with the DMV list. Women are 54 percent of all active, registered voters, but 66 percent of those voters without a North Carolina photo ID.

Tens of thousands of women will be impacted. No doubt some women are caught up in the process of changing names on IDs to accommodate our cultural practices only to have it used against them to limit their voting.

Women need to defend their right to vote to push back against the multitude of policies and laws being passed that assault their well-being. The recent government shutdown, slashing of education funds, cuts to domestic violence programs and ripping up of social safety net programs, coupled with a refusal to expand Medicaid have hurt women the worst. The N.C. Council of Women report that nearly 17 percent of North Carolina women live in poverty or near-poverty. Almost 200,000 of them, operating with no health insurance, may lose out further because our legislators refused to expand Medicaid although it was largely paid for under the Affordable Care Act.

Then there was the appalling, health-care rights debacle that drew thousands of protesting women to our own legislature, mirroring the actions of fed-up women in other states.

Unbelievably there are legislators voting to pay for Viagra for servicemen but opposing funding for family planning and contraception and denial of resources for abortion services even in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother.

You can’t vote them out or against them if you don’t possess the exclusive ID they require to do so. We need the ERA to protect our right to vote to defend ourselves against such discriminatory laws.

In 2013, four joint resolutions bills were introduced into the U.S. Senate and House supporting more than one path to pass an ERA — S.J. Resolution 10 and H.J. Resolution 56 for the traditional Article V ratification process and S.J. Resolution 15 and H.J. Resolution 43 for the “three-state strategy” process that would remove the time limit for ratification of the ERA.

Onslow County Democratic Party organizers invite anyone of any party holding similar concerns to join this demonstration rally for which a permit has been received. Participants should bring their own signs.

Direct questions to onslowcountydemocraticparty@earthlink.net or 910-545-0301.